Thursday, June 7, 2012

Thanks to YOU we finished the gardens!


What an amazing end to the month of May.  It was only 6 weeks ago that we shared our idea for the keyhole garden project with all of you, our friends and family.  Your response was beyond anything we could have imagined and we hope you are proud of the results! 

Benson Mariki, Executive Director and Founder of The Green Living Planet wanted to share a few words of thanks with everyone:

“We are grateful we have been able to build 8 keyhole gardens which are African style gardens; very sustainable for the environment and very ecological garden designs, as well. The gardens aim to support the lunch program for Terrat Primary School.  We will be bringing clean water and rain harvesting to Terrat, as well. We have planted 185 trees; our goal is to plant more than 500 so we are continuing to plant more.

We are thankful to everyone who was able to give what they had to support our cause and we have been doing really great. We ask for more help so that we can help more schools like Terrat.
In the future we will keep working with Terrat Primary School since it is our first school to work with.  Please continue to join The Green Living Planet by telling people about our great work, helping with fundraising or donating and by volunteering, as well!”

Over the course of just three days, May 19th, 21st  and 22nd, we worked with a handful of volunteers and almost 200 different students at Terrat Primary School to build the final 5 gardens for the school lunch project.  Then on Thursday, two days after finishing the gardens, Benson held a meeting with the parents of the Terrat community to discuss the lunch program and the next steps The Green Living Planet plans to take with the community going forward.  We are excited to tell you the meeting was a huge success!  The parents were proud and excited about the work their children had done with the gardens.  Feelings were unanimous – it is of the upmost importance that these children are given proper nutrition so that they can perform to their best potential in school. 



As we shared in our project proposal back in early April, any remaining donations we received would go toward bringing water to the school and surrounding community so that the gardens continue to thrive.  We held a couple of meetings with local chairman and officials and sourced ideas for identifying the most viable water options.  Next week we will share a bit more details with you about the project and the phases we have identified we will need to complete in order to ensure long-term access to water for the school, as well as the Terrat community as a whole.

In the meantime, take a minute to watch this video recapping the last few days of our garden builds.  A million thanks to all of you from The Green Living Planet, the teachers, parents and students of Terrat Primary School!!

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